


The Will Of Time

by babydoll8901



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Sakura, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Friendship, M/M, Ninja, Oiroke no Jutsu | Sexy no Jutsu, Teaching, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-02 17:45:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babydoll8901/pseuds/babydoll8901
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Its been years since the Fourth Shinobi World War and people had started to call it the beginning of a golden age. everyone is happy, so why did Sakura wake up back before she had even become genin? Sakura certainly doesn't know but her dad had always told her "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". AU - Time Travel - Strong!Sakura</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ali The Best Sister Anyone Could Ask For](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ali+The+Best+Sister+Anyone+Could+Ask+For).



_**-Memories in this font-**_  
  
Mind speak in these fonts:  
  
Young Sakura- : _Hello_!:  
  
Cannon Sakura- : ** _Hello_**!:  
  
Inner Sakura- : **Hello**!:  
  
 _-Flashbacks In This Font-_  
  
 _ **Date:Unknown Time: Unknown Location:Unknown**_  
  
Sakura Haruno liked to think she was a logical person, when she saw a situation she didn't understand she gathered Intel in the matter and formed conclusions.  
  
When she had woken in a unfamiliar space she hadn't moved a muscle she had continued acting like she was asleep while she assessed the situation.  
  
She was low on chakra in an unfamiliar, possibly hostile, environment with no back up and no idea on how she had got there.  
  
First she had to find out where she was,she could feel grass underneath her and hear the wind blowing through leaves and yet she could hear no animals, there where no birds chirping or toads croaking even though she could hear a small stream near by.  
  
With that little information she could already tell she wasn't in The Land of Earth, Wind or Rain.  
  
Even low on chakra she had enough to do a subtle scan of the area around her and she was pleased to see she was the only one around for a long while, finally she opened her eyes to observe her surroundings, like she had thought she was surrounded by trees but what she hadn't expected was the type of tree.  
  
She had been expecting to be in a different country and yet she was surrounded with the tall red wood trees only found in the fire country had she not been so paranoid she would have sighed in relief but why go to the trouble of taking her from out of her bed in Konoha just to keep her in Fire territory it made no sense, anyone who was good enough to move her without waking her and get out of Konoha with alerting anyone had to know that the disappearance of the Fifth Hokages apprentice and the team member of the Sixth Hokage would cause panic, so the question was what was the end game?  
  
What would happen if a person important to the village disappeared even for just a few days, the answer came immediately, suspicion.  
  
Even after being Hokage for 6 years Naruto had not mellowed out a lot and finding her gone would cause him to channel his frustration to the easiest target, the other villages.  
  
She could see him suspecting Iwa first, even after all these years Konoha didn't have the best relationship with them, after that would be Mist and he would not be quiet with these accusations and they would waste no time in being offended.  
  
It could ruin all the work they had done to keep the nations peaceful with each other.  
  
She couldn't let that happen they had come to far for everything to fall apart now,  
  
With determination she hadn't felt sense the war, she jumped onto the nearest tree only to nearly fall as she was assaulted with memories  
  
 _ **Daddy I want to be a ninja**_  
 _ **of course sweetie**_  
  
a naive little girl begging her parents for a chance  
  
 ** _Absolutely not, I forbid it_**  
 _ **sweet heart at least hear her out**_  
 _ **no daughter of mine will become a ninja**_  
  
an overprotective mother filled with prejudice  
  
 _ **Don't worry sweetie she will come around**_  
 _ **you promise?**_  
 _ **I pinkie promise**_  
  
A caring father who just wanted his daughter to be happy  
  
 _ **She doesn't have a lot of chakra.**_..  
 _ **will that make a difference?**_  
 _ **It might hinder her.**_  
  
No one really thought she would make past the first year  
  
 _ **Hey, Forehead!-**_  
  
Sakura gathered her strength and lept to the next tree  
  
 _ **Did you see it? Hokage-sama was carrying around the demon brat..**_  
 _ **well he is his adopted son-**_  
  
And the next  
  
Every leap she wasted a little bit of chakra trying to get out of the genjutsu that she was obviously in but no matter how many times she tried to disrupt the flow of the chakra nothing changed.  
  
With a put out sigh she jumped off the tree and landed in a crouch on the ground, if the most obvious method wasn't working...  
  
With a quick movement she bit her hand hard enough for blood to come out, she never had a need to use pain to get out of a genjutsu before but there was always a first for everything.  
  
When nothing changed she hesitantly pressed a finger to a trunk of tree.  
  
 _ **Ino-chan, wait for me!**_  
  
Taking her finger away from the tree she sighed, this had to be one of the most complicated genjutsu she had ever been in, it was easy it make someone think they where in a specific place just put some trees and bushes and done, but this was so much more complicated, every time she touched a tree a memory would suck her in.  
  
Normally she would think that it was the jutsu going through her memories but there where inconsistencies, naruto while still being the kyuubi` container had been adopted by the Third,growing up being the big brother to konohamaru and never knowing what it was like to not have a family and from what she could tell the memories never went past the age of 6.  
  
If the purpose of the genjutsu was to confuse her they had done a good job.  
  
Well she supposed the only way to find out what they wanted was to just go along with it for now.  
  
She spent hours walking around the forest trailing her fingers across the trees, and it didn't take long before she became fascinated with watching her early life in a third person perspective.  
  
She was still confused because it was getting harder and harder to believe that this was just a genjutsu, nothing but the sharingan would be able to create a genjutsu this complicated and keep it up for this long _and_ she thought with a pang of sorrow _no Uchiha had survived the war_.  
  
So the question was if she wasn't in a genjutsu where in the hell was she...  
  
She had been surprised to realize one of the major differences in the memories was the civilians.  
  
At first she hadn't seen it and then little bits and pieces began to form a picture that she wasnt comfortable with.  
  
It had actually been quite a shock to see that the shinobi council had let civilians, _**Civilians**_ , become a part of the shinobi council.  
  
The shinobi council had been made to help the hokage govern the village and to make sure the hokage was doing what was best for the village and for the shinobi in it.  
  
They helped pass laws and to go through trials for the shinobi.  
  
while the civilian council did basically the same only with the civilian part of the village but two thing stayed the same for both councils, in the end the decision was up to the hokage and the shinobi governed the shinobi and the civilians governed the civilians.  
  
For them to be put civilians on the shinobi council when they didn't even understand the life of a shinobi was ridiculous.  
  
How was a civilian supposed to understand that yes the man was still innocent because even if he had killed that civilian it was because the civilian had been selling information about the mans family to enemy nin.  
  
They wouldn't understand the situation and would always declare that the shinobi was the one in the wrong while the poor, weak and innocent civilian had done nothing wrong.  
  
That had been her first thought but she had decided maybe she would be wrong and the civilians would stay unbiased. so she had started to search harder in the trees to find memories of any kind of announcement's from the council.  
  
It had seemed innocent at first, the announcement that a law had been passed in the council that academy students would not be able to graduate until they were fourteen.  
  
Sure there had been a couple people who had been annoyed at the law but it had seemed like such a little thing to give to the civilians, of course they would want to wait till their children were older before they were sent out to the field. she could understand the clan heads not putting up much of a fight against their civilian counter parts when it came to this law.  
  
At first Sakura had seen nothing wrong with it, indeed it had seemed like something that they could make good use for with more time in the academy it was more time to train the children better, but as she went through the fake Sakuras memories of the academy she started to notice something strange, slowly but surely academy teachers began to quit it wasn't very noticeable if you weren't looking for it, and it took me a while realize what had made them so disgruntled as to quit,but as the new teachers came in and started teaching she realized that the shinobi council decides what to teach at the academy and with civilians now in the shinobi council they could choose what they wanted the kids to learn.  
  
 _And apparently they wanted the kids to die on there first mission outside of the village_ she thought morbidly.  
  
From observing the older years through mini Sakuras eyes she realized by the time they finish the academy with the full 3 extra years they would probably have the same amount if less knowledge of when sakura herself had graduated,wasting the three years they could have spent learning under a jonin.  
  
She still didn't know why, but for some reason the civilians had decided to stick their noses where they didn't belong and she was going to do something abo-  
  
Sakura blinked in surprise as she realized that some where along the way she had started to believe that this world she had been observing through the memories of a younger her was real.  
  
Sakura shook her head and pushing down her panic she jumped onto a tree ignoring the memories that sunk into her head she started to travel across the trees, she needed to get out of this forest, she needed to get back to naruto, get back to the real world, with the real problems, she needed to, she needed to  
  
 _ **Sakura take out the- did you see that boy his name is Sasu-i don't think you have a big fore-Fourth Hokage deafeted the Kyuubi-Rule number one-Hi my name's Naruto-Im Sakura- did you hear-the demon brat did it-the Uchiha heir, Itachi I th-**_  
  
It was all just to much, the memories bombarding her at every turn it didn't take long before her brain couldn't take it anymore and shut down and she past out mid leap.  
  
Later she would scold herself for letting her emotions get the better of her but end the end it all worked out because a seven year old pink haired split personality was the one to find her.  
  
 _ **Date:September 3rd Time: 8:13 AM Location: Sakura Haruno' Mindscape**_  
  
Though Inner sakura would never admit it, she sometimes got lonely in Sakura's mind having only one person to talk to did that to you, it was worse when that person was determined to ignore you, so even if she would never admit it out loud she had been excited when she had noticed a new figure walking in the forest that was Sakura's mind, completely focused on whatever memory she was looking at.  
  
At first she had thought it was an intruder and she had been ready to kick some butt, and then she really looked at the woman and had almost fell out of her hiding place as she realized it looked like a grown up Sakura.  
  
Going through possible explanations left only one logical one, Sakura had developed another personality, one that took the shape of a older Sakura.  
  
It was enough to make her want to cackle with glee because she knew Sakura's reaction was going to be amusing, she had just about to jump down to introduce herself when she realized something was wrong, although she hardly payed attention to the lectures that Sakura had to endure in the academy somethings just stuck with her and she had always been fascinated with the lecture on reading the emotions of someone just by looking at their body language and she could see the panic written on other Sakura's face.  
  
Hoping to calm her down she jumped out from behind a bush, only to be a moment to late as the other personality jumped onto the nearest tree and started leaping to another one.  
  
Inner Sakuras eyes widened she opened her mouth to yell out a warning because she knew all to well what happened when you went from tree to tree to fast while under stress but it was to late the memories had took their toll and other sakura passed out mid leap.  
  
 _well she was going to have a huge headache when she wakes up_ was inners last thought before she went to put other Sakura some where more comfortable.  
  
 _ **Date: September 3rd Time: 9:15 PM Location: Sakura Haruno' Room**_  
  
Sakura Haruno knew she was smarter then the average seven year old, it was something she was very proud of.  
She also knew she was more logical then children her age, when she saw a situation that she didn't understand, she researched and put together all the facts until she understood.  
  
Most of the time it was simple; why did her mother always go to the vendor across the village instead of the one down the street?  
  
Because they had better quality food and was run by a women who had the best gossip in the village.  
  
Simple.  
  
Then there was the harder ones like why did the adults have a problem with Naruto?  
  
There was only a small chance that it was because of his obnoxious personality or the pranks, a slightly bigger chance was that it had something to do with his parents and a pretty big chance that it had something to do with the Kyuubi, what with his birthday being on October 10th, the frequent hisses of demon whenever an adult saw him and the fact that he couldn't leave his home on October 10th without a mob forming.  
  
She still had no idea how he was connected to the Kyuubi but she was almost positive that it was the reason the adults didn't like him.  
  
The point was when she was confused she took the facts and came up with the most likely answer but now her logic could do nothing to help her because even with all the facts the most likely answer was not possible-  
  
 _ **:Not impossible just improbable.**_ :  
  
She pinch the bridge of her nose trying to fight off a headache, as if having one split personality wasn't enough.  
  
 _ **:How many times must I tell you I'm not just another personality.**_ :  
  
: **At least once more I suppose** : Inner Sakura deadpanned  
  
Sakura sighed despairingly, when had her life become so complicated?  
  
She almost wanted to be mad at the other personality-  
  
 _ **:not just another per-:**_  
  
 **:we get it!:**  
  
-for complicating her life but she had been more helpful then harmful since she had popped up out of the blue a few hours ago claiming to be from the future.  
  
She had wondered how her split personality was more insane then her but the more she said the harder it was to disbelieve.  
  
There was just to many things she shouldn't know, her mind went back to earlier that day when she had instructed Sakura in a chakra control exercise that let you layer chakra at the bottom of her feet so she could stick to the surface of a tree, that she had never heard before so how could a split personality someone who was essential her know.  
  
: _ **you will have to accept the fact that I'm telling the truth sooner or later**_ : She said softly.  
  
Sakura didn't want to accept it, she wanted to stick her head in the sand and hum loudly until she could ignore everything but almost against her will curiosity had started to grow.  
  
If it was true then she could know how her life turned out...did she ever get married to Sasuke? Did they have children-  
  
 _ **:Really? You finally admit-:**_  
  
 _:I have admitted nothing:_  
  
 _ **:I'm from the future and the first thing you want to know is if you get married to sasuke.**_ :  
  
...  
  
 ** _:No, we don't get married to Sasuke._** :  
  
and with that she stuck her head in the sand and began to hum.  
  
 _ **Date: September 3rd -Time: 9:20 PM- Location: Sakura' Mindscape**_  
  
There was a stunned silence and then  
  
"What do you mean we don't get married to Sasuke!" Inner demanded hotly,  
  
Sakura had put the facts together until only one explanation was left, She was in the mind of a 7 year old Sakura in an alternate dimension.  
  
While she had been stunned it wasn't the craziest situation she had been in, fighting a man who believed he could create world peace by putting a genjustu on everyone on the planet with the help of the moon, was the first that came to mind.  
  
So she had accepted it easier then she would have years ago, and she knew it was pointless to stay in denial when she could be doing other things.  
  
But this Sakura hadn't been through the things she had so she had been expecting denial, but if she couldn't get mini Sakura to believe her then she would stay in her mindscape forever and that was not something she wanted and so she had explained the situation to Inner Sakura and mini Sakura when she had woken up.  
  
She had gotten the expected denial so she had taught her the tree walking exercise, something mini Sakura had never even seen before let alone knew how to do, and she knew she had slowly convinced them that she was telling the truth, but what she hadn't expected was them being even more in denial about the fact that they didn't marry Sasuke then they were about the time travel.  
  
"Of course we marry Sasuke! who else would we marry." Inner continued to rant, oblivious to the fact that sakura had stopped paying attention to her five minutes ago.  
  
Finally sick of listening to it, Sakura put up a hand to stop Inner "I'm from a dimension where i don't get married to Sasuke, I never said that it would be the same here"  
  
Sakura doubted they would marry Sasuke here either but she would say anything for Inner to shut up already, her high pitch voice was shrieking at her with no thought to Sakura's sensitive ear drums and looking at inner calming down she knew she had made the right choice.  
  
She had been here for almost a whole day and she had plans she needed to put into action and she couldn't do that if they wouldn't listen to her, and if thinking they still had a shot at Sasuke would get them to help her well then she would say nothing against it...for now.  
  
She just needed to get mini Sakura in here to talk with her because as much as she was used to weirdness talking to a voice that came from the sky was still something she couldn't get used to, but she knew she would have to wait until mini Sakura fell asleep to pull her into her mindscape so she decided to relax until then maybe even get some rest but even as she said that she knew it wouldn't be long before her mind would go back to when she had first arrived here confused and lost…  
  
 _ **Date: September 3rd- Time: 11:50 PM- Location: Sakura' Mindscape**_  
  
Outer Sakura had fallen asleep an hour ago and so future Sakura had pulled her to the mindscape it had taken a while to get outer sakura to stop exploring the forest that was her mind and they were only now sitting in a circle in a clearing to talk about what this new development meant for them.  
  
Inner cleared her throat to get both Sakura's attention,  
  
"I call this meeting to order." Inner said dramatically once she was sure she had everyones attention.  
  
Ignoring the looks she was getting from both Sakura's she continued,  
  
"I think it should be obvious what topic we should start our meeting on,"  
  
when all she got were blank looks she sighed,  
  
"Code names! we need code name's." she said as if it were obvious,  
  
"There are now three Sakura's living in one mind, we cant all be called Sakura it would be too confusing."  
  
When Outer Sakura opened her mouth Inner knew she was about to get screamed at for not being serious when surprisingly future Sakura spoke up before she could.  
  
"Thats actually a good idea."  
  
When Outer Sakura looked at her with a betrayed expression future Sakura gave her a small smile.  
  
"It could be a good practice for when you would need to go undercover in a mission as a different person, this way you can practice answering without hesitation when someone talks to you with a different name"  
  
Outer Sakura relaxed and nodded for her to go on.  
  
Inner Sakura looked at future Sakura thankfully, she had not been looking forward to that screaming match.  
  
"You know we can take it one step further and invent our own back stories for our pseudonym."  
  
Both younger Sakura's looked at her curiously, hearing the unspoken question she cleared her throat slightly before continuing with a softer tone  
  
"My name is Shiraishi Michiyo,i am twenty one years old, I am the daughter of a minor noble in a small town in wind country. My father has recently passed away leaving me to move to Konoha to live with my only living relative, my uncle Shiraishi Takumi.  
  
my mother died when I was young and I had spent most of my childhood being raised by the few servents that we had, my favorite was Ishimaru Asuka who always made me hot chocolate when I was sad. I was trained in the art of tea making since I was young and hope to some day open a small tea house in Konoha."  
  
Some time during the introduction Sakura had moved to sit on her knees and her hand clasped on her lap.  
  
For one second both younger Sakura's really believed her and then future Sakura laughed and the spell was broken.  
  
both younger Sakura's stared at her with awe before bombarding her with questions  
  
'How did you do that?' 'Can you teach me to do it?' 'Did you really make that up on the spot?'  
  
"No I didn't make it up on the spot, that was actually one of the pseudonym I used when I had to infiltrate a small town in grass."  
  
If anything that just made them more impressed, Sakura rubbed the back of her neck embarrassed a habit she had picked up from Naruto.  
  
"Lets see what you can come up with." She encouraged them.  
  
Instead of the excitement she had expected they hesitated,  
  
"Whats wrong?" Sakura asked with confusion.  
  
"Yours was really good, what if.."  
  
Sakura smiled as she understood  
  
"We will go step by step alright."  
  
They nodded relieved  
  
"Alright lets start with a name."  
  
"Kuroda Misaki" Inner decided,  
  
A few seconds later Outer said,  
  
"Nakamura Michiko"  
  
The newly named Michiko and Misaki smiled as the lesson continued some how knowing that it wouldn't be the last.


	2. chapter 2

Inner tried to control her excitement, but it was so hard! she finally had someone to play with! Outer had ino-chan and some of the other girls from class to play with, but Inner didn't have a lot of options when it came to making friends or playing.   
she may of only been a split personality but that didn't mean she didn't get lonely only having one person to talk too.  
Older Sakura seemed completely focused on her self-made task of teaching her as much as she could about 'Stealth and Espionage', she had no idea what that second word meant but she knew as soon Outer heard of this lesson it would be the first subject she would research at the academy library. Inner perked up as she focusing back on what the pacing Older pinkette was saying.  
"Espionage is what i consider as the cheif role of the shinobi. With the aid of disguises, the shinobi gather information on enemy villages. There are four main tactics used by shinobi in conducting espionage activities: discovering enemy plans, anonymity, misleading the enemy and collecting intelligence."  
Inner had stars in her eyes as she imagined herself dressed in all black climbing on ceilings to listen to enemy meetings and ambushing missing nin.  
Her hopes were soon crushed as Older Sakura went on, explaining the actual dangers if one was caught as a spy within another village. As cool as it would be to dress in disguises and help her village by discovering enemy plans that would save millions of people, she did not know if she would be able to handle to consequences if she was captured.   
"Misaki-chan, any thoughts you want to share?" she looked at the Older woman with confusion, the only person here other then Older was her-  
she looked at the woman sheepishly and waited for the disappointment that didn't come.  
Older Sakura crouched down next to her with a solemn face  
"you need to get used to answering as soon as you hear what ever name you have for the mission. If you are under cover in an enemy village you Need to respond to the name you have chosen as if you were born with with it; there can be no hesitating. it only takes one mistake for a good shinobi to turn into a dead one."   
the six year old lip wobbled as she held back her tears and thought back to the shinobi rules that Outer spent so much time trying to memorize; Rule #25. "A shinobi must never show their tears."  
Inner had not meant to say it out loud but as soon as it passed her lips Older Sakura stiffened before sighing softly.  
sitting down next to the split personality Older picked her up and set her in her lap.  
"sometimes i forget that your just as much of a child as Outer is"   
Older let her fingers run through the little girls hair as she spoke absently  
"the shinobi rules are supposed to be guidelines not laws, there is no shame in crying when you scared and besides the only person here is you"   
Inner gave into her tears after only a second hesitation and it had to be the best moment in her young life; Outer was the one to be comforted when she was sad, not Inner. she had never been held before, like someone cared about her, the split personality.  
after a few minutes Older shifted and stood up with Inner still in her arms, "why dont we take a break from all this serious work. how about we play a game?"   
Inner stared up at the woman with awe before breaking out in cheers  
"a game! we are going to play a real game?" the six year old had jumped out of the older womans arms to dance around her in excitement and Older laughed at the hyper active child.  
"alright is there a specific game you want to play?" Older asked  
Inner looked at her as if it was obvious "ninja of course"   
Older nodded solemnly "oh, but of course."  
they spent the rest of the day running through the mind scape as Older used the opportunity to teach Inner some of the things she would need to know to show outer the memory of today: how best to hide in this of environment , training her to track chakra by hiding and then flaring her chakra ever few minutes; Inner spent the whole game oblivious to the lessons Older was incorporating into the game.  
_  
Sakura looked at the worn out six year old fondly, she knew the young girl was just seconds away from falling into dream land and so when Outer appeared into the dream scape she made sure to motion for her to be quiet, The six year old nodded her head quickly and shuffled over to her, she hesitated for just a moment before she sat down next to Older.  
"Did you have a good day at the academy?" Sakura whispered,  
Outer stared up at her before blushing and and tilted her head down so her hair hid her face  
"it was fine"  
"what did you do today?" Olderasked patiently   
"well, we started on the leaf exercise" she said slowly   
Older nodded her head encouragingly  
and so slowly Outer started to talk about how frustrated she was with how slow her other classmates were at getting their leaf to stick to their skin.  
"it only took me a few minutes to get mine to stick to my forehead! but i still have to wait until the other have done it before we can move on" the young girl pouted   
"while the other children try and get the leaf to stick, why don't you try and make the exercise more complicated"  
the girl looked up at her curiously "what do you mean?"  
"well, how long can you keep the leaf on your forehead?"Older asked calmly  
the pinkette fidgeted before grudgingly admitting that she could only hold the leaf for a few seconds.  
"Alright, then how about at first you try to get it to stick for a minute and then when you have that go to two minutes, and when your done with that try making the leaf move with your chakra, and after you get that you can try holding up multiple leafs"  
the child started to get excited as she thought of the possibilities, even thinking of other things she could try with the leaf, herself.  
Outer paused for a moment as she looked over at Inner who had slept through their whole conversation  
"what did you and Inner do today?" she asked curiously as she looked at the passed out form of her split personality  
"we played ninja, you will have to get inner to show you when she wakes up" Older said  
Outer tilted her head curiously before nodding and going back to thinking of all the thing she could do with the leaf exercise.  
Sakura smiled to herself as she stared at the two tiny forms next to her before a small frown tugged at the corner of her mouth; The Uchiha Clan massacre would be soon...  
to be honest she didn't what she was going to do about that or even if she would be able to do anything, at the moment she didn't even have an actual body let alone one capable of doing something to stop the massacre. Being stuck in the mind of a six year old severely limited her options and if there was one thing she needed right now, it was options.  
she knew she needed to find a way that she could interact with the real world without risking her younger self; Her most immediate thought was of Zetsu. Zetsu had one of the worst cases of multi personality disorder that she had ever seen; it wasn't the fact that he had a lot of different personalities that made it so sever, it was in the way it had manifested, with the half white half black body and the unusual cannibalistic tendencies. But he had some how found a way to separate his personalities into two different bodies, and that was what she needed. The problem was that Zetsu other personality already had a physical way to interact with the world that Sakura did not have. there were of course other examples of shinobi sharing one body and splitting apart at will, but as disturbing as it was to think it, Zetsu's situation was was the one with the most similarities with her situation. There was also the fact that even when Zetsu separated, the bodies only had the bare necessities and that would be no good for Sakura.  
if she was going to get out of here and protect her village from threats that they weren't even aware of yet then she would need a fully functional body with all of her body parts.  
"Older?"  
Sakura startled as she looked at the child next to her  
"sorry, i was lost in thought" Sakura said sheepishly and Outer gave her a solemn face  
"daddy says when your lost in thought its best to talk about it to find your way back"  
Sakura gave her a considering look before giving in   
"i cant stay in here forever, there are things that need to be done and for me to do them i need my own body" she explained to the six year old.  
"so there would be two of me in the outside world?" she asked curiously  
Sakura nodded her head absently  
"like when the older kids do the clone jutsu?"  
"yes like th-" Sakura sat there for a moment stunned, there was no way it could be that simple.  
But what if it was that simple? what if she had just made things more complicated for no reason.   
the child looked at her innocently from her spot next to her and Sakura realized that this tiny girl had most likely just solved her problem.  
of course they would have to research it more but it was a lot easier for an academy to research clones then it was to research techniques of missing nin.  
she would have to figure out how she would be able to put her consciousness in a clone and there was the thought of how she would be able to make a solid enough clone that one hit would not immediately pop it, but she had a outline of a plan and that was better then no plan at all.  
_  
The next three weeks were spent on experimenting, trying to see if Older could blend her chakra with Outer, it was during this that they discovered something that changed everything; Inner was developing own chakra system, completely separate from Outer.  
Sakura knew for a fact that when she was younger and Inner was still a separate part of herself that Inner had no chakra coils, so this was something completely unexpected and Sakura didn't know how she should react.  
At first they were completely stumped of how this had happened, Inner should be just a separate personality and yet she was somehow developing chakra coils as if she was another person entirely, and then Sakura realized how much her being there effected her younger self.  
Every shinobi learns early on to keep their chakra pulled into themself when on a mission and soon it becomes instinct to always have their chakra pulled into themselves when on missions but it wasn't natural to keep your chakra in yourself all the time and so when shinobi feel comfortable in their setting (i.e there own village) they let their chakra flow freely and that causes the chakra to, for lack of better word, leak into their surroundings.   
Sakura had naturally felt content in her own mind scape and had unconsciously let go of the tight hold she would have on her chakra, and Inner who had never been exposed to chakra was suddenly being bombarded with Sakuras own chakra, it was most likely a natural reaction for the chakra to start being absorbed into Inner, someone with no chakra to speak of. it was one of the most fascinating things Sakura had seen, and the medic part of her just about had a heart attack at the medical impossibility in front of her.  
Inner of course had been terribly excited at the discovery, boasting about her amazing abilities and reminding Sakura strongly of a younger naruto.  
Sakura of course had examined the girl to see if there was any problems so far in the development but for the most part the coils were developing as a new born baby would.  
This discovery had made them put the research for clones on hold until they could figure out if having two beings with separate chakra coils in Outers mind would cause any damage to the girl.  
it was during this that they discovered completely by accident that Inners developing chakra could blend completely with Outers. By its self this wasn't an amazing discovery because Inner and Outer were mirror images of themselves, but put together with the research that they had been in the middle of, it became a whole lot more.  
Suddenly there was a possibility that Inner-no Misaki could be more then just a split personality.  
Misaki had a chance at an actual life now, not stuck in the mind of her other half.  
now all they had to do was figure out how to get to that point; that was easier said then done.  
_  
It was decided that it would be better for everyone if they waited until Misakis coils had stabilized completely before they attempted to do anything with her, so she began working on getting her chakra to blend with Outers.  
it should have been easy, every medic-nin had training in getting their chakra to go to the same 'frequency' of others so that they would be able to speed up the healing process without the other persons body rejecting the 'foreign' chakra.  
But Sakura had never had a need to blend her chakra with another one so completely that they were basically one. it would take an enormous amount of control to be able to do it and had her reserves been any larger it would most likely not have worked but Sakura had always been able to take advantage of the fact that she would never have the same amount of chakra as either of her old teammates and there was the fact that she had not needed to use such advanced chakra control since the end of the war and she silently admitted to herself that she had let herself get lazy in the period of peace.  
Any other time and Sakura would have enjoyed the challenge, but she needed this to work, so badly. There was so many people she could save, if this worked!   
Asuma would be able to watch his son grow up.  
The Third hokage would not have to die defending his village from his student.  
Jiraya could make up all those years he never had a chance to have with naruto.  
Sasuke would not grow up thinking only about revenge.  
Itachi would not die being thought of as a kin slayer and missing nin.  
and those were only a few of the people she could save, she knew the chances of her saving everyone were slim but the chances that she would be sent back in time were even slimmer and look at her now.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer- I sadly do not own naruto.

On field promotions had become very popular the year after the war had ended, as they got more missions with not enough chunnin and Jōnin to go around and so a lot of unprepared genin suddenly became chunin and chunnin were promoted to Jōnin without the skills to back up the title. The new Jōnin would be sent out of the village on missions while the more experienced would stay behind to guard the village.

  
After a a year with no more attacks the still at war mentality had faded and people had become cautiously optimistic, things were being straightened out in the ranks now that they had time, the chunnin who had been promoted prematurely were sent to train with the experienced Jōnin until their skills matched their titles, and because of it the death toll among the Jōnin went down significantly and the amount of skilled Jōnin seemed to have multiplied over night.  
Naruto had been very happy with system and had made it so that every new Jōnin would have to spend a year with a more experienced Jōnin, some had felt a little insulted to what could be compared to more advanced genin teams but for the most part the system had worked well for the village.  
Sakura hadn't understood exactly how well it worked until now.

  
the saindaime had obviously not thought of this solution after the third shinobi war or the kyubbi attack and she was only now realizing how few Jōnin there actually were in the village, in the future there had been the same amount of Jōnin as there had been chunnin, but here there were less then twenty Jōnin and taking into account that most of them would at some point take their own genin team to teach leaving them unavailable for mission, that left the village with around ten active Jōnin!

  
Sakura had almost fainted at the thought that her village had so few people to take care of the high ranked missions that kept the village afloat , but what could she do? she had the same obstacles on this that she did with the Uchiha case.  
maybe even more because in this time line she had absolutely no in with the Hokage that would not mark Outer as a spy or a prodigy, they could afford neither at the moment.

  
she knew if she could just get this idea with the bunshins to work then she would be able to make a plan to fix both of these problems as well as start trying to figure out what the hell was going on with the civilians in the council.

  
she hadn't even been in the past for more then a few months and yet the things that needed to be done kept stacking up and Sakura was getting a headache at all the problems that seem to be multiplying faster then she could keep up.

  
The fact that every single one of her plans hinged on this one idea was completely ridiculous and she did not like the fact that it was limiting her options even further but for the moment she had better things to do then brood about all the things she could be doing, like for example teach a seven year old how to create a bunshin.

  
" Alright, now i want you to take a deep breath and look for your chakra"  
she had been taking advantage of the fact that she could communicate with Outer while she was not in her mind by trying to instruct the girl while Misaki started practicing hand seals.

  
"I'v got it"

it had taking her a while to get used to the younger girl's voice coming from the sky, by this point though she managed to hide how bad it startled her to have a invisible person talking to her.

"alright now i want you to stretch a layer of your chakra over your skin" she instructed for the hundredth time. So far they had managed to get the chakra to spread across her body but as soon as they attempted the head things began to fall apart as Outer tried to keep the chakra stable while trying to coating each strand of her hair as well as keep the rest of the chakra from falling apart, it was the very definition of multitasking and Sakura knew that Outer had begun to treat it like a challange rather then training.

there was a few minutes of silence before a victorious but exhausted voice spoke up from the air

"I'v done it!"

Sakura beamed and praised the girl before trying to get the excited pinkette to calm down

"don't get too excited that was just step one, Now your going to need memorize the feel of it"

this was the reason it was always easier to start the bunshin jutsu with yourself as the bunshin, because you could use your chakra to feel out every nook and cranny of your body until you knew your body down to the smallest detail, later on you would learn how to make bunshins with different features but for the first couple times it was easier to just use yourself.

of course they didn't teach it like this at the academy, you had to have very good chakra control to create a layer of chakra outside of your body that was that thin, but this way, while harder to use for those without a lot of control, was a lot more effective and life like. she had learned about it when she had been studying medic jutsu's, to use any of them you had to have a very good knowledge of the human body and this was the starting point.  
if Outer had been anyone else she wouldn't have even attempted to teach her like this but Outer may have below average amount of chakra and that gave her a huge advantage for some things, like stealth and control, and if there was one thing Sakura had learned in the future it was to take advantage of every skill you had, even the ones that did not seem like skills at first.

she remembered how self-conscious she had been in the academy with how little chakra she actualy had, it had seemed like such a bad thing, she had tried to prove that just because she didn't have a lot of chakra didn't mean that she was useless and so she had spent most of her time sharpening her most powerful tool, her mind, in the end that hadn't helped her during the wave mission and it was only during that disastrous chunnin exam that it had finally sunk in that if she was going to survive then she was going to need more then just brains. She was hoping that with her help that Outer and Misaki would not have to have to learn that lesson as harshly as she had.

"Now once your done with that i want you to do it again and again until it only takes you a second to cover your whole body"

she knew there was no way they would be able to make the bunshin itself for at least a few more weeks but as much as she was looking forward to getting out of here to actually do something she also knew that she was going to miss this.

After they got the bunshin working she would not be able to communicate with Outer unless she came up with a valid reason to spend time with a seven year old.

Sakura had never had a chance to take her own genin team, having to much on her plate with missions and running the hospital and until now she hadn't even known that she wanted one, but each time Outer or Misaki managed to over come some obstacle with her help she felt proud. she had become quite fond of Outer and was going to miss her .

 

shaking that thought out of her head she made her way over to where Misaki was sitting, the tiny pinkette was staring intensely at her hands as if they held the secrets to the universe.

"how are things going over here?" she asked as she settled down next to the younger girl,

she got nothing but a vague hum of acknowledgement from the girl and Sakura raised an eyebrow at her but waited till she was done with whatever she was doing.

"if i keep working on hand seals in here will i still have the muscle memory in the bunshin?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.

Sakura blinked and just stared at her for a few moments before sighing at her own stupidity

"no, the muscle memory may very well not stay with you so i guess we will have to wait till we get the bunshins working before we work on anything with muscle memory, and since you cant practice any chakra exercises before your chakra coils stabilize we will have to work on something else. why don't we iron out the details of our cover story"

they had already agreed early on that Misaki would most likely pose as her little sister once they got out. she hadn't really had the time to iron out all the details so the only thing she knew for sure was that Sakura would use a henge to age the bunshin to about nineteen.  
She knew that she would have to use a variation of Narutos sexy no jutsu, as the only other person who would know the jutsu had yet to even invent it so she would be the only one who knew how to counter it. It would figure that Naruto would create the only henge that would be able to handle any kind of inspections and use it to prank perverts.

"our parents were most likely merchants that died from a bandit attack about a year ago, you were old enough to take care of me so we never went to an orphanage." Misaki said hesitantly

"very good" Sakura praised the girl and she beamed in response

"what do you think my name should be?" she asked

"Michiyo" Misaki said immediately

" my name from the mission in grass?" Sakura asked confused

"no one from here knows that name so you don't have to worry about any one recognizing you and this way you won't have to familiarize yourself with a new name" Misaki answered and Sakura stared at the little girl next to her stunned before she smiled at the girl and ruffled her hair

" you're not supposed to be smarter then me" Sakura teased her and Misaki stuck her tongue out at the older girl while giggling.

"Alright, why do you suppose we moved to Konoha?"

Misaki gave a deadpan look before stating

"because Konoha is awesome"

like it was the most obvious reason in the world  
Sakura hid her laugh behind a cough

"while im sure most Konoha nin would certainly agree with you, we might want a more concrete reason"

Misaki pouted before settling down and trying to think of a more valid reason, while Sakura watched fondly, she could think of quite a few reasons to move to Konoha but she knew this was a good exercise for Misaki.

"what about Yukito?" Misaki said after a few minutes of silence

"Yukito?" the older pinkette questioned

"yeah, you know the new kid in Outers class."

Sakura vaguely remembered something like that and so gestured for her to go on.

"He begged his parents to come to Konoha so he could go to the academy" she said and Sakura smiled

"we should be able to work with that"

It would be fairly easy to get a story with that, having only been eighteen at the time of their parents murder she had only just been old enough to keep both Misaki and her from going to an orphanage and the only thing that kept the roof over their heads was the money their parents had left to them, and when Misaki had started expressing her want to become a ninja Michiyo had decided to send her to Konoha for the academy.

Of course Michiyo had to find a job and what better job would a civilian teenager have then that of a babysitter, she remembered from when she was small how she had gone through multiple different baby sitters for when her parents had to work, this way she could keep training Sakura without anyone getting suspicious. it was perfect now all that they needed was to find out where they had come from.

it would have to be somewhere in fire country as there was no chance that Konoha would allow someone from a different country to move into Konoha without a very thorough background check, one they would not be able to pass.

it should be easy to say they had moved from the Fire Capital, once they got out here she would have to send some kage bunshins to the capital to put down the base work, they would have to wait about a week or two to get everything together before they could officially move to Konoha.  
Before that though she had to figure out what she was going to do about the Uchiha Massacre.

She knew had things run there course and the Uchiha would have still rebelled but she knew that the whole clan had not been in on the coup and as much as a risk as it would seem to Danzo to leave behind Uchiha's who may get into their thoughts that revenge against Konoha for executing their elders, their head of the clan, and some of their most prominent clan members. But she also knew that when Fugaku would die itachi would have to take up the mantle of Head of Clan and she knew he would not allow any clan members to get any treasonous thoughts into their heads- the only problem with this solution was Danzo.  
As much as that voice in her that sounded like shishou that told her that getting rid of the old war hawk would solve all her problems, she knew that it would not be an option if things continued the way they are. Not even considering how difficult it would be to get the drop on one of the most paranoid ninja in Konoha, there was still Root to think about.

Root took the missions that the public of Konoha did not want to know about, it took the missions that even ANBU hesitated to accept. But as immoral as Root seemed it had stopped wars before they had even began, it had kept their village afloat when there weren't enough ninja to go around after the war and kyubbi. As much as she hated to admit it things would have been a lot worse if Root had not been there; it was just too bad that the person leading the organization was a corrupt bastard with too much power and not enough loyalty to his Hokage.

"Michiyo?"

Sakura blinked and focused on the girl next her

"you know the mission wont start for a few weeks more, you don't have to call me that yet" she told the younger girl

"well you might be familiar with the name but i'm not used to calling you that and so i'm starting now" the seven year old declared imperiously and Sakura snorted but didn't say anything against it.

"i want to start too!"

both of them looked over as they saw Outer running towards them

"so everyones going to be calling me Michiyo from now on?" she questioned and got two nods in response so the newly dubbed Michiyo sighed before nodding.

"if it pleases you" she teased

she got two simultaneous "it does" in response.

-

"Michiyo, what is your henge going to look like?" the only remaining Sakura asked. 

Misaki who had not even thought to ask leaned towards Michiyo curiously.

"i hadn't really thought to much about it" she answered idly

both younger girls looked at her in disbelief

"not even a little bit?"

"Well, ill most likely have to use a disguise that looks as plain as possible" she answered

"plain?" Misaki demanded outraged  
Michiyo raised an eyebrow at her

"this is going to be how you look for the rest of your life now!"

Michiyo paused, she had been thinking of this like any other infiltration mission, but this wasn't going to be some short term mission; the chances that she would be able to get back to her time were zero. This was going to be her life until she died; she was going to have to spend the rest of her life living a lie unless she decided to make it a known fact that she was from the future and that was one thing she did Not want.

"i hadn't really thought about it like that" she admitted

"Well, not anymore! how are you going to get a husband if you look plain!" Sakura exclaimed horrified at the thought.  
Michiyo looked at the younger girl incredulously

"husband? i'm not getting married" she told the younger girl  
Both seven year olds looked at her in horror

"what do you mean your not getting married!"

Michiyo wondered if she had really been that obsessed with love when she had been that age. of course she did spend most of her academy career as a fangirl, so maybe it wasn't that hard to believe.

"i don't have time for love" she told them

Misaki grasped her chest as if she had just stabbed her and Sakura had to switch between trying to comfort the other girl and staring at Michiyo as if she was an alien.

"wel-"

"we are done talking about this" she told them firmly

they both looked at her with rebellious faces and she knew even if she stopped the conversation now it would not be the last she heard it.

"i will not allow you to be seen in my company if you don't look magnificent, so i have a deal for you" Sakura said trying to impersonate her mothers way of talking when she was trying to make a deal with someone

Michiyo hid her smile at how ridiculous the other pinkette sounded but she nodded for the other girl to go on as she knew she would be pestered otherwise.

"if you allow Misaki and I to design how your henge will look then we will not bring up any mention of marriage again" she proposed to the woman  
Michiyo was silent for a few minutes as she thought over the deal, she knew if she did not agree to this deal then she would be bombarded with conversations full of love at first sight, romance and marrige but on the other hand if she she allowed them to 'design' her henge then the mission might be compromised because there was no way that they would pick something low key. she rolled the pros and cons around in her head before finally sighing, as much as it pained her to admit she knew that she did not have the Patience to listen to the many arguments of why marrige was just the thing she needed and maybe it would have made the administration even more suspicious if she had ended up going with just a plain henge, most infiltrators use henges that could be forgotten easily.  
maybe it would help to have a henge that would stand out a little she tried to think optimistically

"very well, but my appearance can not be too outrageous" she warned both of them as a feeling of dread filled her as she watched the two giggling seven year old.... maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N  
> So, i have a request for my readers! i need ideas! i vaguely know where im going with this but i don't have a full picture yet and i would love to hear what you guys want to see in this! i really would love if you took the time to give one or two idea, even a tiny one, so if i ever have writers block (like i did after the first chapter) i can go through all the ideas to give me some insperation. Any idea will help, so dont be shy!
> 
> A/N Also i want to make it clear that Romance will Not be the focus of this book! i don't even have an idea for anyone who would be with michiyo, so even if i did decide to give a slight bit of romance a shot it will not be for a while.


End file.
